This thread may die on the vine, but I thought it might be good to have a place for all of us die hard softball fans to express their final thoughts about this year's team. I'll start. The Gators started with a lot of talent and high expectations. The key losses from last year were Skylar Wallace & Katie Kistler, plus Ariel Kowalewski who transferred to Texas A&M over the winter. We returned All Americans Jocelyn Erickson, Korbe Otis, Reagan Walsh and Keagan Rothrock, plus Golden Glove winner Kendra Falby. We had a superior incoming freshman class and 2 quality infielders from the portal. Lots of talent, but my observation all year was that something just wasn't quite gelling with this team and even though they put up gaudy offensive numbers, played one of the toughest schedules in the nation and had a Top 5 RPI, the "IT" factor just didn't seem to be there. The ladies played hard, seemed to enjoy playing together and had some awesome moments throughout the season. But they fell short of their SEC regular season goals and lost their first game in the SEC tournament. Still, they easily won their regional, conquered some past ghosts and beat Georgia in the Super and made it back to the WCWS for the 13th time since 2008. Amazing achievement. Taylor Shumaker was incredible! But defensive woes plagued the team throughout the year and Rothrock's 5 week absence seemed to mess up the confidence of the pitching staff and as a group they never got back to the high quality level needed to make a deep run at a championship. All in all, it was another successful season for a great group of young ladies - just disappointing for all as to how it ended. I will truly miss our departing seniors, but especially Walsh, Falby and Otis. It will be really hard to replace them for 2026. But Tim Walton is a tremendous recruiter and coach and I have all the confidence in the world that he will field another team of great young women who will compete their tails off for Gator Nation!! Can't wait for next season to get here. Go Gators!!
Really as simple as needing two things we need for next year to me. A lock down number 1 pitcher. A Skylar Wallace type bulldog who drives the attitude of the bench. She was missed more than has been talked about I believe. I think back to the ‘95 basketball team. The ‘94 team had been to the final four and all we were losing was Craig Brown. Expectations were sky high, and we barely made the tournament as one of the last teams in, and went out in round one. Small changes to chemistry can have a huge effect.
Overall a season with some really good games, until the end. A lot of run rule games in our favor, until the end. Really happy to see Reagan and Korbe hit homers in their last at bat as Gators!
Regardless of the two and done at OKC, you have to give a lot of credit to the coaches, staff, and players. Those who want to rip the coaches don't get sports in general and probably never played any sport at a high level! These are all human beings, they have a life, family, most take school seriously, and on top of it have people pressuring them constantly! Including some who think there apart of the program and are just annoying Celebrate there accomplishments and don't dwell on any negativity.... The Seniors will be missed certainly, but starting now a new group of Seniors take over. I'd definitely watch out for Jocy if I was on next year's schedule. If healthy, our pitching staff should be deep enough to make another run to OKC! Go Gators!!
Ocala, great synopsis. The 2 things we need to improve is no one should have just 1 good pitcher. We need a studette to get over the top. Second, when HR's and doubles are not happening we need to learn some small ball rechniques. Note TT in a couple of their games. With Aric it will never happen but I can always hope! Unfortunately, Skylars, Amandas, Laurens, and Aubrees dont come around but every once in a while.
I agree with you. Even though Taylor Shumaker more than replaced Skylar Wallace’s offensive output, we weren’t able to replace that “refuse to lose” bulldog mentality that Skylar brought to every game.
I am definitely not an expert in things softball, Gator softball especially. But what I watched this year, and Walton is as a seasoned of a coach as there is, is kind of like a more successful version of the woman's basketball team. There are definitely pieces in place to succeed, but you can tell there are pieces that better teams have that we do not...yet. And so, we beat up on lesser teams but, unless the better teams lose the game, we don't have the overall makeup to overcome them. Not sure whether it is a NIL thing or a lack of understanding what makes an elite team tick, but overall we appear to be just outside of elite. Now to the basketball team...
Sad and disappointing way for some fantastic careers of some amazing young ladies to come to an end. At least I guess it happened at the WCWS, most teams and players never make it that far. I know they wanted more and can’t fathom the hurt they feel but the positive impact they had on the program and the legacy they leave behind won’t be forgotten. Really going to miss them and wish them all the brightest of futures.
We lived and died this year by the Home Run, we need to get back to using the whole field and spraying the ball all over the field and being less dependent on the long ball.
Dynamic offense as opposed to one dimensional offense. After 2011 and hitting 120+ homers and falling short (Chris drumm helped asu a lot) I figured that lesson was learned. Anyways I agree.
For me, the bar for a great season is making it to the WCWS, seeing the year being applied to the outfield wall after the last game at Super Regionals, and all the families celebrating in the outfield. By that measure we had a great season. A run at the WCWS is frosting on the cake -- admittedly not much frosting this year. I got pummeled in the forum before the beginning of the year when posting that I thought our pitching was suspect. Granted injuries made things worse, but I stand by that post. Last night, I was rooting for Texas Tech to beat Tennessee. Every inning when NiJaree Canady went to the circle, I was pretty confident that things were going to be fine, regardless of a slim lead. I haven't had that feeling with Gator softball since the days of Barnhill/Gourley/Ocassio. For better or worse, softball is evolving to long ball and pitching. I can live with an infield error or two -- I just hope the portal brings us a shutdown pitcher.
